MBTA unit with big, bad bus has seen little action
Transit police say its roving command post is necessary
On city streets, it has the subtlety of a tank, and that is before it engages its strobe lights.
The large, jet-black bus has four surveillance cameras on its roof trained in every direction, and looks like the kind of tool an authoritarian regime might use to scare or scoop up dissidents and other malcontents.
This new MBTA bus, unlike other vehicles in its fleet, was designed to intimidate. It is a roving command post, a 13-year-old passenger bus refitted for $100,000 to transport one of the transit police department's newest outfits, its Civil Disturbance Unit.
"Part of what we wanted to accomplish is to make a statement," said Paul MacMillan, acting chief of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority Police Department. "The vehicle shows that we've arrived, we're here to take control, and that we're in charge."
Over the past two years, the 24 officers assigned to the unit have been deployed fewer than 10 times and have yet to make an arrest.
But with their refurbished bus, which took to the streets in May, and about $20,000 of new body armor, shields, and an arsenal of tear gas and pepper-spray grenades, they are ready to pounce.
"We want to serve as a deterrent," said Lieutenant Stephen Salisbury, the unit's commander, who has overseen the force's deployment at recent Red Sox victories, antiwar rallies, and this spring's international biotechnology conference. "When people see us, we want them to know that we're prepared, trained, and ready to go."
Asked why the 259 MBTA officers - about 10 percent the size of the Boston Police Department - need such a fully outfitted riot-control unit, MacMillan and Salisbury said they do not want to have to rely on other agencies for help.
"It's our responsibility to make sure that the economic lifeblood of the area - the transportation - continues," Salisbury said. "We don't want to have to wait for anyone."
MacMillan added that the transit police have skills that officers in other departments lack.
"The transit environment requires training in the third rail, tunnels, and the close confinement of subway conditions," he said.
Officials at the Boston Police Department declined to comment on whether the MBTA's new unit complements their force or presents a problem by potentially creating future turf battles. Boston police, after a public feud with the Suffolk district attorney's office, this fall lost their jurisdiction over homicide investigations on MBTA property to the State Police.
The idea for an MBTA riot-control unit was hatched after the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, when the department received intelligence that protesters planned to disrupt the convention by chaining themselves to subway cars.
Nothing of the sort happened, but officers said they were not ready to deal with the threat.
"We had nothing," said Sergeant Chris Maynard, a member of the unit since it was organized in the fall of 2005. "We just weren't prepared."
Since then, the department has selected officers who can meet strict fitness standards, have no record of using unjustifiable force, and have not used more than three days of sick time in a month or five days in two months.
"I don't want to call us elite, because the special ops and motorcycle guys wouldn't talk to me," Salisbury said.
The officers have spent a week training at the US Department of Homeland Security's Center for Domestic Preparedness in Alabama, where they have studied the history, causes, and types of riots, as well as the laws and strategies for dealing with urban unrest.
"It used to be about bringing out the dogs, hats, bats, and cracking heads," Maynard said. "That's not what we're about."
On a recent morning, dressed in the unit's black battle uniforms and packing .40-caliber Sig Sauer pistols, the men showed off their equipment - their long batons, foam, punch-proof vests, and bags full of shin, elbow, and forearm guards.
They demonstrated how they would use bolt cutters and electric saws to defeat efforts by protesters to chain themselves to places where police do not want them.
As he sawed carefully through a PVC pipe concealing a chain, a device protesters outside Boston have used to resist police, Officer Samuel Albany said: "We're in no rush; they're not going anywhere."
They also showed off the amenities of their big, black bus - the onboard generator, the high-tech video camera system, and the Plexiglas windows. "Even Roger Clemens couldn't throw something through it," Maynard said. "It stops everything but firearms."
Afterward, Maynard turned on the blue and white strobe lights, which surround the bus. "Don't be scared," he said. "We're a friendly bunch. We just want to make sure no one gets hurt."
David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. 